


This Frightened Part of Me (That's Fated to Pretend)

by Princess_Aleera



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Closing Rifts are exhausting, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Rifts - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-20
Updated: 2015-01-20
Packaged: 2018-03-08 07:44:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3201101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princess_Aleera/pseuds/Princess_Aleera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My palm tingles uncomfortably as we draw nearer to the Rift, and I square my shoulders. Staff in hand, I give Bull and Dorian a nod; it is meant to reassure them, but Bull gives me a sympathetic smile and Dorian rolls his eyes like he doesn't want to feel whatever he's feeling, so I doubt I succeed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Frightened Part of Me (That's Fated to Pretend)

**Author's Note:**

> My first ever Dragon Age fic, so forgive me if I've made any grave mistakes. Title is from 'Blue Spotted Tail' by Fleet Foxes.
> 
> I wanted to explore the physical ramifications the Inquisitor faces by constantly closing all these Rifts - from the looks of it, they require a great deal of energy, which comes from where? This is really just scratching at the tip of the ice berg, but there you go. Hope you like it?

Dorian is scouting. Technically, Cole is on scout duty because he's smaller, faster, and easier to miss than the rest of us, but Cole is busy talking to a nug we've come across, so I leave him be. This route seems fairly quiet, and I know he'll be on my heels in a moment, were we to be ambushed by templars, Freemen, or the odd great bear.

After travelling across the Hissing Wastes for six weeks, it's almost a physical pleasure for me to look at the woods around Direstone Camp. For Dorian, I know, the immediate relief of being in a place far from sand storms and wyverns has worn off, but for me? The Emerald Graves reminds me of home. The woods here in Orleis are different, softer somehow from a less rigid climate, but the songs from birds in the forest, the smaller wildlife, the cool mountain water; it's all the same as home in Ferelden.

I crouch down to pick up some elfroot we've stumbled upon.

“You really think we need more of that, boss?” Bull asks, leaning on his recently acquired Avvar broadsword. His voice is teasing – I spend far too much time stepping off the beaten path to find herbs, I know, but my healer past will not fade any less than the Mark on my hand – but his smile is smaller than it used to be, grimmer. All his smiles are grim now, verging on bitter, since he was proclaimed Tal-Vashoth.

I can't imagine what it must be like to be shut out so completely from your own tribe. At least I'm staying away from _my_ tribe to protect the ones I love; my family is still there, safe and loved. Bull has no family left, not among the Qunari.

He does among the Inquisition, though. And among his Chargers. I know, if I asked him, he would tell me that it's worth the price.

“You never know when you'll need more herbs, Bull,” I say, too late to mask my wayward thoughts. I look around, past greenery, to spot Dorian on an outcropping nearby. He's staring at something in the distance, and looks pinched. It's a look I have begun to associate with me, and with a particular brand of foe.

“Another Rift, then?” I say, loud enough that he hears.

He tries for one of his glib smiles. “You know,” he says smoothly and slides back down to join me on my right, “we could just walk the opposite way. We're merely wandering, after all – no harm, no foul.”

I don't bother to answer at all, only send him a Look. I'm told I have an impressive array of Looks.

He sighs. “Fine, have it your way.”

Bull snickers behind us.

“Cole?” I ask, and he shows up right before us, almost out of thin air.

“We're fighting demons?” he says, both a question and not one, and looks expectant and calm all at once. He twirls his knives and sets off to where we can all, by now, see that particular and vivid emerald blast in the sky. It's close, and too close to camp. It's a wonder nobody has stumbled into it before now and triggered it.

My palm tingles uncomfortably as we draw near, and I square my shoulders. Staff in hand, I give Bull and Dorian a nod; it is meant to reassure them, but Bull gives me a sympathetic smile and Dorian rolls his eyes like he doesn't want to feel whatever he's feeling, so I doubt I succeed.

Then we're too close, and the Rift bursts open with a high-pitched, shattering sound that makes us all flinch. Demons of various kinds spring out of the ground where the green pulses from the rift hits, and I summon a wall of fire between myself and the demons so I can focus on trying to close the rift.

I've tried talking with Solas about the energy I expel, but he doesn't know much more than I do when it comes to rift magic. We simply don't know where it comes from, the energy I pour into the open rifts through my mark. I feel it, I always do; there's nothing as draining as this, so part of the energy must surely come from me, but not all of it. If it did, I would be dead by now, wouldn't I?

I connect my mark to the rift for the second time and grit my teeth together. It always feels like this; like the inside of my skin gets sucked out through my palm, inch by inch, slow and painful and exhausting, only to be replaced with aching blackness. Eventually, I think, I must run out of me and there will only be emptiness left, a hollow shell where the Inquisitor used to be.

Demons screech around me, and I hear the tell-tale clash of Bull's steel against softer hides. I smell phosphor in the air from Dorian's lightning staff, hear Cole's quiet, serious laughter, feel the energy pulled out of me like nails pulled out of the tips of my fingers. The third pulse, harder than the others; it pulls from deeper, from my stomach, makes everything inside me clench with discomfort that slowly morphs into harsh pain. I don't speak, don't scream. I did, the first few times, unable to keep quiet as my insides were turned around, but this is not my tenth, my twentieth, my fortieth Rift.

It is not something I'm used to, by now, but it _is_ something I'm resigned to.

The third pulse shakes the ground, and the higher-pitched, more painful shrieks tell me that the demons are dying. My eyes are closed; it's like sneezing, impossible to keep them open against the force. My companions are close now; Cole muttering under his breath, what sounds like a conversation; Bull a quiet presence on my left; and Dorian, on my right, almost close enough to touch.

“What a day to be alive,” he says, bitter and humorous all at once, barely heard over the rush of sound as I finally close the rift. I've bitten through my lower lip, but the sharp flare of pain barely registers amongst the rest. I can't breathe over the forces crashing against and through and out of me, like a giant's fist against my sternum. My ears ring, my knees shake and then everything explodes in green and I'm on my knees, like always, like every time after.

I suck in a harsh breath and feel a large, heavy hand on my shoulder.

“Nice work, boss,” Bull says.

“What a day to be alive,” I croak out and look up at Dorian, whose face is shuttered.

“You're bleeding all over your clothes,” he says with a tight frown and helps me up, uses my shaky legs as an excuse to hold me close for just a moment, our foreheads touching so briefly it could be by accident. I know it's not. 

He presses a linen handkerchief into my trembling hand. “Honestly, you look terrible. Can't have the Inquisitor looking like he's just lost a bar brawl, can we?”

I laugh shakily and accepts the kerchief. “If it would make anyone inclined to buy me a drink out of pity, perhaps I ought to stay like this,” I say and wipe away the blood on my lip. It's already closing up, not a deep wound, though I taste the iron nonetheless. My head aches like a particularly unpleasant morning after, and my stomach roils. I swallow and try to concentrate. “We should get going.”

Dorian waves me off. “We've time to take a moment.”

Bull nods. “Let the kid scour through the remains, see if there's anything useful around here.”

“Yes,” Cole says brightly. “There are essences, they whisper to me.”

“Sure thing, kid. Go nuts.”

Cole looks at me, pale eyes boring into my own. I used to find him discomforting, like most of us do, from the way he looked so deep into me. What makes him different from others, I've since realised, is that no matter how deep Cole digs, he's never disgusted by what he finds. He only collects it in his mind, like another puzzle piece in the great mystery of being human, and carries it with him.

It's... soothing, in a way, to have someone know my darkest edges and not recoil from them.

I stand up straighter, and ignore the way everything shifts dangerously around me. My stomach tosses and turns, but I try to smile.

“Shaking,” Cole says, “everything shaking, tilting to the side, mustn't let them know, must be the strongest, burns, it burns my palm, everything is inside out now-”

“Cole, it's okay,” Bull says tiredly, just as I fold up and vomit onto the forest floor. “We get it. We can see it too.”

“I can't help,” Cole says and sounds lost. He walks over to Bull and stands so their sides touch, not asking for the reassurance but merely taking it, knowing it is freely given. “It won't let me.” He stares at my mark.

I spit. Dorian hands me a small flask and I take a swig, try to rid myself of the foul taste.

“That's more often, too,” Dorian says. “Is it not?”

The vomiting? Yes. I don't say it out loud. “We need to move on,” I say instead, my voice hoarse than before. “As soon as Cole finishes searching through the bodies.”

“Yes,” he says. “When I am finished.” Then he smiles triumphantly, and starts going through the pockets of two nearby corpses. His movements are achingly slow, stalling, clearly to give me more time to regain my equilibrium.

As infuriating it is to feel coddled, I'm also deeply grateful. Bull grins widely and then sits down with his back towards me. Dorian rolls his eyes, but he also steps closer and slips his arms around my waist to hold me.

It's... good to be held sometimes. Not be the person to hold everyone else up. I sigh and turn my head to the side, press my face against the line of his throat.

“Tsk. You smell like dead bronto,” Dorian says, and I can hear how worried he tries not to be.

_You know I'm going to die,_ I want to say, but this is not the time. It is never the time. _You all know the mark is killing me._ “I thought that's what you think every Fereldan smells like,” I say instead. “That, mud, and dogs.”

He laughs, warm and fond. He holds me hard enough to hurt for a moment, as if terrified to let go.


End file.
